software testing courses

The Black-Box Software Testing series is the most extensive and scientifically based software testing courses. The depth and relevance of the learning experience, coupled with the individual feedback each student receives, offers an unequaled level of progress. 

We are promoting and continuing the work of Cem Kaner, to grow the testing community and change the mindset on software testing. This is why we are working hard to always improve our BBST® series and make them the go-to courses for advanced skills in software testing.

We deliver the software testing courses online to make them accessible to as many people as possible. Our online training gives participants the flexibility to adapt the course work to their own schedule and time zone.

Course Details:

Fully Online

 3 weeks of classes

1 week for exam

Software Testing Certification

CERTIFICATE OF COMPLETION

Participants who successfully complete the course will receive a Certificate of Completion in digital format.

We encourage you to share your certificate of completion on LinkedIn or any other professional platform you are using.

FOUR WEEKS OF INTENSIVE STUDY

During the four weeks of each course, you will be interacting with instructors and student peers, expanding your testing skills. These courses are not about grades, they are about learning. Our goal is to support you to learn things that will help you in your work. The courses are designed to help you explore your limits and expand them.

canvas platform

EASY-TO-USE ONLINE PLATFORM

We are focused on providing you with the tools and environment you need to interact, to collaborate, and to learn. We will use the popular Canvas platform so all of your learning resources are in one place. You can watch video lectures; participate in discussions with others; and receive detailed feedback from instructors.

choose a specialization and focus on skill development

THE BBST® Specialization

BBST® Professional Software Testing Specialization

Gain a diverse set of skills to excel in all day-to-day testing activities. There are 3 courses in this specialization.

BBST® Effective Bug Investigation & Reporting Specialization

Gain advanced skills to excel in bug advocacy and other bug-related activities. There are 2 courses in this specialization.

BBST® Test Strategy & Design Specialization

Gain the necessary skills to choose the right testing techniques in any working context. There are 2 courses in this specialization.

explore our individual online courses

THE BBST® COURSES

Organized around four critical challenges in software testing:

What the mission of a testing effort is and how the project strategy helps achieve that mission.
How a tester can determine if a program has passed a test.
What key challenges emerge in developing and using software metrics.
How we can measure the amount of testing that has been done and estimate the amount of testing that remains. Also, how we can decide when to stop testing.

Helps develop skills in effective bug reporting. Some of these skills are primarily technical, such as troubleshooting failures and isolating failure-producing configurations.

However, many bugs are left unfixed because they were not presented persuasively. The course applies lessons from sales, psychology, and law to help you understand how to present your reports more credibly and more persuasively and how to assess the quality of troubleshooting and communication of reports written by your staff or colleagues.

Our courses teach context-driven testing. Rather than relying on a few “best practices”, we encourage you to adopt the approaches and techniques which are applicable to your project. To do this, you need to know a variety of techniques, with insight into their comparative strengths and blind spots.

Surveying about 75 testing techniques, we emphasize six (function testing and testing tours; risk-based testing; scenario testing; spec-based testing; domain testing; and combinatorial testing). This lays a solid foundation for context-appropriate test planning.

After learning multiple testing techniques in Test Design, in this fourth module we will focus on domain testing, also known as boundary testing or equivalence class analysis.

This course teaches a risk-based approach to domain testing and helps you gain competence in the technique through extensive practice with real-world applications. You will learn to do variable tours, to sample appropriately from secondary dimensions of variables and to imagine relevant tests for results and consequences.

BBST® EVENTS

WORKSHOP

Introduction to State Model-Based Testing

on-demand exclusively for groups

Learn how to discover weak spots in your application through an effective testing technique that allows you to generate and automate test flows.

WEBINAR

Bug Advocacy in the Time of Agile and Automation

recording available on-demand

Join our webinar live to find out how to get the right bugs fixed in this age of agile and automation. Register with just your email!

Classes in 2023

Foundations

Jan 29 – Feb 25

Foundations

Mar 12 – Apr 08

Test Design

Apr 23 – May 20

Foundations

Jun 11 – Jul 08

Bug Advocacy

Oct 08 – Nov 04

Foundations

Nov 05 – Dec 02

Content owners

Dr Cem Kaner

As a Professor of Software Engineering at Florida Institute of Technology, Cem Kaner’s research was focused on software engineering, primarily software testing, software metrics, and computer law & ethics.

His career is centered around a consistent theme: enhancing the satisfaction and safety of software customers, users, and developers.

beckyf

Rebecca Fiedler is an educator and a lifelong learner.  She has spent decades teaching students of all ages – from Kindergarten to University. In the testing community, she works with Cem Kaner on the BBST® online professional development courses. She is a regular attendee and presenter at the Workshop on Teaching Software Testing and has had numerous presentations at national and international conferences in education and educational technology.

FAQ

What are the course logistics?

The courses will be fully online, with students participating and collaborating using the Canvas online learning platform. Students attend and participate in classes by logging in to the course website and participating in the discussions. To succeed online, it is essential that you:
log in to the course several times a week;
read and respond to course-related emails on time;
participate in the course discussions as outlined by your instructor;
complete all assigned work on time; and
ask for help if and when you need it.
Active participation is essential in the BBST® courses because we have set them up to last four weeks each. If you fall significantly behind, you miss the course. Discussions will usually take place in a Forum, a Glossary, or a Wiki.

How are these courses different from other testing courses?

Here are the main aspects that differentiate our courses from others on software testing:

  • they are specially designed for online learning;
  • there is an in-depth level of learning – participants practice, discuss and evaluate what they are learning;
  • they are practical, based on real-life issues faced by IT professionals;
  • participants receive individual feedback on every assignment from the instructors;
  • there will be an interactive grading of your final exam, a 1-1 session with one of the instructors;
  • there are small groups of students, making it possible to interact with everyone as in a face to face class;
  • instructors have over 15 years of experience in the field.

The courses combine useful theoretical concepts with practical exercises and assignments meant to have a real impact on your work. Our goal is to support your growth as a tester and encourage you to develop your strengths.

We are not interested in teaching theory that you will forget but in acquiring knowledge that you will actually use.

How will the instructors help me?

The BBST® instructors will be available throughout the course to help you with the course assignments, give you feedback and answer questions. For each lesson, you will receive comments and guidance from your instructors.
We put great emphasis on providing individual feedback, in order to offer a tailored learning experience.

Will I get a certification if I complete the course?

You will receive a digital certificate, signed by all the instructors, for each course you complete.

How much time am I expected to dedicate to a course?

Students are expected to spend an estimated 15-20 hours / week on course assignments and studying. Many students with good English skills and good focus practices will be able to successfully complete the course with less than that too. The work can be done in smaller chunks every day, even during work hours, which means that you don’t need to be away from your projects for long periods of time to work on the course.

What is the courses language?

All assignments and all work will be done in English, but we can offer support in Finnish and Romanian whenever you feel you might need help.

How am I evaluated?

Each lesson in the courses will have a specific assignment as well as an online quiz to check your understanding of the materials presented in the lectures.
From the first day of class, you will have access to a pool of exam questions. Practice writing your answers. Review practice answers from other students. Get feedback on your answers and provide feedback to your peers. For the final exam, your instructors will select six questions from the pool of questions. You should be well-prepared to answer any questions they choose.
But, don’t worry too much about the exam. The final decision about whether or not you successfully complete the course also takes into account your overall involvement in the class and the quality of feedback you give to the other students.

What am I paying for?

We are very excited to be teaming up with Cem Kaner and Becky Fiedler in delivering the BBST courses, and here are some of the reasons for that:
we support Cem financially to update the materials and take the courses further, so that the students can benefit from improved and up-to-date materials.
we involve Cem as instructor in some of our courses, so that more students get access to his vast experience and teaching skills
by teaching the courses along with Cem, our instructors receive direct feedback from him and improve their skills and the value of the feedback they provide to students
our approach is to provide a substantial amount of individual feedback to the students, in addition to the classwide feedback and interactive grading sessions. All these facilitate a personalized learning experience.
we support our instructors financially, to give them the opportunity to develop their skills doing something they love, while being rewarded for their work.

What if I cannot complete a course?

As many of our students are working professionals, we understand that there can be unforeseen events which might prevent you from dedicating enough time to the course in order to be able to complete it. This is one of the reasons we offer the the flexibility of online courses – so you can work on the course when it is convenient for you.
However, in exceptional circumstances, we may be able to offer you a place in a future session of the course, based on availability.

What are the course payment options?

You may pay for the course using one of the following methods:

  • Pay online using a Credit Card/Debit Card via our online payment provider plationline.ro. Visa, Maestro and MasterCard are accepted.

Once the payment has been completed, your seat in our online course is booked.
If choosing the option to pay by card, the transaction will show on your account with the reference “altom.training”.

  • Pay by Direct Bank Transfer.

Once adding the purchase to the cart, we will send you an order at the email address provided. Please use the order ID to make the payment to the specified bank account. Next, we will send you the invoice by email. After the payment has been cleared by our bank, your registration for the course will be finalized.

What happens once I've registered for the course?

You will be given access to the online course platform one day prior to the start of the course.

What are the cancellation and refund policies?

Registration for an individual course or the course specialization can be canceled up to 5 business days prior to the start of the course. Subject to this condition, the participation fee will be refunded, less a 5% administrative fee.
If cancellation is made past due time, the participation fee will NOT be refunded, but registration will remain active for any of the future reiterations of the course.

What happens if you do not successfully complete one or more of the courses in the specialization?

If you fail any of the courses, you can pay for that course again at the price on the website and continue with the rest of the courses in the specialization.
If you decide that you don’t want to continue with the course series and there’s nothing we can do to convince you to try again, then we will refund the price of the specialization, minus the courses you have already completed. As a price reference for the completed courses, we will use the price displayed at that moment on the website.
For example, if you don’t successfully complete the BBST Foundations after the first try and you decide to stop:Refund = specialization price – BBST Foundations price on the website.
The same amount will be refunded if you graduate BBST Foundations, but then you don’t want to continue with the remaining courses in the specialization.
Please note that we won’t refund the specialization price if you have registered and paid, but you haven’t attended any of the classes in the 3 year time limit.

Free Resources

BBST® Video Lectures

The video lectures from the first 3 courses are available to the public under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Watch the latest version for each.

BBST® open-source materials

Here you will find the readings, videos, and other materials previously available on testingeducation.org.

BBST® RIMGEN cards

We created a collection of cards that explain each step of the RIMGEN framework. The cards are beautifully illustrated and are available for print.

The Blog

5 thinking errors fixed by BBST® Foundations

5 thinking errors fixed by BBST® Foundations

When you want to join the testing community there are a few things you need to know. Testing is much more than exploring a platform, discovering some supposedly obvious UI errors (e.g. a button that is not working), or working all by yourself. I have to admit that these were some of my thoughts before…

2023 Heads-up: The Inevitable Prices Change

2023 Heads-up: The Inevitable Prices Change

It’s been 8 years since the first people on our team started teaching, promoting, and eventually dedicating much of their resources to updating and developing the BBST® series. They were convinced (and managed to convince others like me) that BBST® can significantly improve the software testing practices of our industry. During this period, we had…

What do I want to know when starting a new project

What do I want to know when starting a new project

Starting or moving to different testing projects can be overwhelming. Usually, there is a lot of information to grasp as quickly as you can. Maybe the team is new, the stakeholders are different, and there might be a lot of specification files to read thoroughly. Since I started my testing career, I have worked on…

How testing can be hijacked by common biases

How testing can be hijacked by common biases

Experimenter effects: If you WANT to find bugs, you are more likely to find bugs / if you adopt a nicey-nicey attitude and just want to help the programmers demonstrate that their program works, you’re going to miss a lot of bugs. It’s not just that you will not report them. You’ll just not see…

A new BBST® official partner: Oose

A new BBST® official partner: Oose

We are happy to announce our new partnership with Oose, a consulting, education, and training company based in Germany. For the past 20 years, they have been offering seminars and workshops, at their customers’ site and the oose.campus in Hamburg’s Schanzenviertelfor. A few of their trainers approached us wanting to promote the BBST® courses among…

How has the BBST® Bug Advocacy course changed my work

How has the BBST® Bug Advocacy course changed my work

We’re starting a new blog series where we interview BBST® graduates and ask them to share their unique perspectives and experiences on a topic regarding the courses or their profession. Our objective is to let you, our readers, have more in-depth answers to the not-so straightforward questions we receive. For this first blog post in…